I am pleased to announce that George Mason University will host the mid-Atlantic mirror of MAGNI on 10/22/11 at our Fairfax campus. MAGNI is a collaboration between Chris Chiego and Auroni Gupta at UCSD, Matt Jackson, John Lawrence, and Kevin Koai at Yale, and Jerry Vinokurov. It will be a regular difficulty tournament.

REGISTRATION:

Teams must register prior to the day of the tournament in order to play. To register, please e-mail me at ben.cole.19 AT gmail.com with the number of teams, buzzers, and staffers you want to bring, and an email address where you can be contacted with details. I will e-mail my team contacts with necessary information as we approach the tournament. Feel free to share this announcement with any schools that you think would be interested in attending.

DIFFICULTY AND LENGTH:

The goal of this event is to provide a tournament with a moderate difficulty level while still offering answer lines and bonus parts which inexperienced players can convert. In addition to controlling difficulty, the editors will also be controlling length. No tossup in this set will go past the seventh full line of text (measured in 10 point Times New Roman with 1-inch margins). The editors seek to ensure that individual bonus parts rarely exceed two lines in length.

ELIGIBILITY:

This is a tournament for collegiate quizbowl teams. To that end, any teams consisting entirely of students (undergrad or grad) who attend the same school may play this tournament. Interested high school teams are eligible to play, as are solo players and teams which must play unaffiliated / unsponsored for whatever reason, but all such teams must consist entirely of students who attend one school. High schoolers enrolled in for-credit classes at a community college, college, or university may play for either school in which they are enrolled. Separate campuses of an overarching university count as separate schools.

NO open teams or non-students may register to play at this tournament. This editors' decision is non-negotiable.

If you are still unclear as to whether you’re eligible to play on a given team, email Auroni Gupta and Matt Jackson (auronigupta at gmail.com, REDACTED).

LOCATION:The tournament will take place entirely in the Johnson Center, one of the largest and most recognizable buildings on campus, which is marked in red as number 29 on this campus map. We will meet in the Johnson Center Cinema on the lowest floor of the Johnson Center. If you have trouble locating the Cinema, there is an Information Desk in the center of the building on the first floor, whose staff should be of assistance. Game rooms will be on the third floor, the second floor, and the ground floor. There is an elevator on one side of the building which can go to the ground floor. The elevator on the other side of the building can get to the first, second, and third floors. Check-in will begin at 8:00 AM, morning announcements will be as soon as possible after 8:30, and play will begin at 9:00.

DIRECTIONS:Please be sure that your directions are to the Fairfax campus and not the Arlington, Prince William, or Loudoun campuses. For GPS, the nearest intersection to the tournament location (and to parking) is Mason Pond Drive and Patriot Circle.The tournament will take place in the Johnson Center (JC). We will meet in the JC Cinema on the ground floor (NOT the first floor). If you have trouble locating the Cinema, there is an Information Desk in the center of the building on the first floor, whose staff should be of assistance. For on campus parking, park on the visitor level of the Mason Pond parking deck, which is marked in purple as number 39 on this campus map and is located very close to the Johnson Center, which is marked in red as number 29 on this campus map. The daily rate is $14.If you arriving via the DC Metro and CUE bus, the CUE bus lets riders off on Rappahannock River Lane, right next to the Rappahannock parking deck, which is marked in purple as number 40 on this campus map. Proceed to the Johnson Center as marked on the campus map. Staff may be sent to Rappahannock River Lane to walk you to the JC.

FORMAT: Assuming the field size stays the same (i.e. that no one drops), each team will be guaranteed 11 games. The format will be as follows: the prelims will consist of two brackets of eight teams who will play a round robin. After prelims have concluded, the top four teams from each bracket will enter the top playoff bracket, where they will play cross-over games with the top four teams of the other bracket. The bottom four teams from a given prelim bracket will do the same for the bottom playoff bracket. We will keep individual statistics. Book prizes will be awarded to the top 2 teams and to at least the top 8 individual scorers. A trophy will be mailed to the winning team.

METHOD OF PAYMENT: It is considerably preferable that you pay by check instead of cash; we will potentially have little cash on hand for making change. Make checks out to "GMU Quiz Bowl," endorse them on the back, write "Deposit only" and our student organization's number, 610472.

FOOD: Lunch will not be provided. We urge all teams to eat on campus to avoid delays. The Johnson Center contains several places to eat, including a sub station, a Burger King, a Panera-like sandwich place, an Indian station, and a Chinese station. There are more places to eat outside the Johnson Center, but we strongly encourage all teams to eat in the Johnson Center to avoid delays. We will provide teams with a food guide.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, I will be this tournament's director.

Our team will provide between four and eight staff members, so obviously we will need a considerable number of outside staff for this tournament to run. I will be seeking staff volunteers among local quizbowl alumni and Mason service organizations, and teams are highly encouraged to bring staffers. Anyone who wishes to volunteer should email me at ben.cole.19 AT gmail dot com.

Ben Cole, Southside '10, George Mason '14nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals/ the power of your intense fragility:

"I'll also note the humor in me defending high schoolers from Matt Bollinger." - Mike Cheyne

Duncan Idaho wrote:Barring unforeseen circumstances, I will be this tournament's director.

Our team will provide between four and eight staff members, so obviously we will need a considerable number of outside staff for this tournament to run. I will be seeking staff volunteers among local quizbowl alumni and Mason service organizations, and teams are highly encouraged to bring staffers. Anyone who wishes to volunteer should email me at ben.cole.19 AT gmail dot com.

I sent Ben an emailing registering two teams and one buzzer a while ago and noting that we may go up to 3 pending successful zipcar acquisition but haven't heard back, so I'll hop on this posting bandwagon.

Sarah Angelo,Maggie Lena Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, Class of 2010UVA '14VCU School of Education 2016 Young Reader Literature and Middle School Literature, Pop Music, & Mythology Subject Editor, NAQTMember, PACE

tl;dr version: The field stands at 11-12, pending details from Penn, Maryland, and UVA.

The field has been updated, with buzzers and confirmed outside staff, in the first post. Twelve days from the tournament, the field stands as follows:

Registered (7-8)(emailed):DelawareVCULibertyGW x2UVA x2-3

The following teams need to email me confirmation of their registration, including whether or not they are bringing buzzers or outside staff:Maryland 2+Penn x2

I would like to apologize, particularly to Liberty, for not being even minimally communicative in the past couple of weeks. Other commitments, including my job, have kept me busy. This was inappropriate of me, and it will not happen again.

Ben Cole, Southside '10, George Mason '14nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals/ the power of your intense fragility:

"I'll also note the humor in me defending high schoolers from Matt Bollinger." - Mike Cheyne

DumbJaques wrote:Hey Ben, just want to confirm that you got my email about adding a third Maryland team.

I have. And with the addition of quite a few Pitt and Princeton teams to the field, we now have 16 officially confirmed teams and two uncomfirmed Penn teams. I'm going to tentatively cap the field. Any more interested teams should email me and will be put on a wait list. Should I get a greater response from outside staff than I expect, or should this number of teams be awkward with the number of packets, I may consider raising the cap.

Ben Cole, Southside '10, George Mason '14nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals/ the power of your intense fragility:

"I'll also note the humor in me defending high schoolers from Matt Bollinger." - Mike Cheyne

Hey, Ben, since we're still listed at 2-3, I wanted to make sure you got my email confirming 3 teams.

Sarah Angelo,Maggie Lena Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, Class of 2010UVA '14VCU School of Education 2016 Young Reader Literature and Middle School Literature, Pop Music, & Mythology Subject Editor, NAQTMember, PACE

For the purpose of putting names into SQBS, and also for the purpose of making the brackets even, I'm asking each school to email or PM me a roster for each of its teams with first and last names. If a player is uncomfortable giving his or her first and last name, please give his or her first name and last initial.

Ben Cole, Southside '10, George Mason '14nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals/ the power of your intense fragility:

"I'll also note the humor in me defending high schoolers from Matt Bollinger." - Mike Cheyne

Our administration has moved our game rooms from Robinson due to a failure in our booking site, 25live. Currently, half of our game rooms are located in the Johnson Center, and the remaining half are located in the academic building Science and Technology II. This is potentially disastrous, so I am working with our Events Management office to correct this as quickly as possible so that all game rooms can be in the same building.

Ben Cole, Southside '10, George Mason '14nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals/ the power of your intense fragility:

"I'll also note the humor in me defending high schoolers from Matt Bollinger." - Mike Cheyne

Duncan Idaho wrote:Our administration has moved our game rooms from Robinson due to a failure in our booking site, 25live. Currently, half of our game rooms are located in the Johnson Center, and the remaining half are located in the academic building Science and Technology II. This is potentially disastrous, so I am working with our Events Management office to correct this as quickly as possible so that all game rooms can be in the same building.

I have good news: we now have enough rooms in one building (the Johnson Center) that using a second building is unnecessary. All the game rooms will be in the Johnson Center, as will our meeting area. The bad news is that the Johnson Center may have a decent amount of human traffic since it's essentially a union building. Seven of the eight game rooms are on two adjacent floors, and the last is on the lowest level. There are two usable elevators, however.

EDIT: adjacent floors

Ben Cole, Southside '10, George Mason '14nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals/ the power of your intense fragility:

"I'll also note the humor in me defending high schoolers from Matt Bollinger." - Mike Cheyne